biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1761–1826)
|
| biography:
| Minister and geographer, born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Graduating from Yale (1783), he stayed there to study for the ministry, teaching at schools to support his studies, and writing the first American geography textbook, Geography Made Easy (1784), later reprinted in some 25 editions. After several short-term preaching assignments, he settled in the First Congregation Church, Charlestown, MA (1789–1819). He defended orthodox Calvinist tenets in the church, publishing the Panopolist (1805–10), and established the Andover Theological Seminary (1808). Becoming known as the ‘father of geography’, he also continued writing about geography for such texts as The American Geography (1789) and The American Universal Geography (2 vols, 1796). He helped found the American Bible Society (1816). |
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